Stitches
by pancakesandtables
Summary: lol why
He was always surprised when either of them were able to get up to their floor without anyone noticing their injuries. He never asked. Maybe they would hold it together until the last second before opening the door.

Dom had been gone for two days and Nat longer, Ty had gotten home from god knows where and was planning to leave again when he opened the door to find Dom, holding her side as she pushed past him and collapsed onto a chair, careful not to press her back against it. He saw why when she turned opposite of him. Unfortunately this wasn't a rare occurrence and never had been. Most of the time Nat was here and could handle it but—of course there were moments where it was just him.

"Want some help?" He asked nonchalantly whilst walking into the bathroom to dig around for the first aid kit..

Dom scoffed, grumbling 'no' loud enough for him to hear. Of course Tyler took no head to what she said.

"It's a good thing I don't really care." He murmured, going to her bathroom to pull out their extensive first aid kit. Some of the things in there were definitely not legal but you have to choose your battles. He came back, bringing one of the bar stools from the kitchen along with him. "That looks...excruciating." Ty mumbled, moving her carefully onto the bar stool. He sat cross legged with the first aid kit in his lap in the chair behind her. There were multiple wounds — distinctively from a knife. The largest one was on her back. He took a deep breath, happy that she couldn't see how infuriated he was. Partially at the person who did this, partially at her for allowing them to do it. The first one —well, the biggest one— stretched from her right collarbone to her left shoulder blade, seeming to barely skip over her spine. Lucky. Besides that there was a large purple and red bruise that ran around the lower right part of her ribcage. He stared for a few moments — it was upsetting to say the least.

"So," She says, forcing a smile, "how was your day?"

He paused, not answering her question though it seemed rhetorical, instead he got up to grab some of Nat's fancy Russian vodka from the kitchen cabinet.

"Do you want some of this before or...?" The answer was no. He knew it would be. To him this was always the worst part. With a shrug he returned to the seat and cut what was remaining of her shirt off before pouring a great deal of alcohol down her back. She gritted her teeth and you could hear the hissing sound of her wounds cleaning themselves out.

Part of him hoped she would pass out, but she didn't. She rarely did. Once when he was younger, Dom had lost consciousness after Nat poured vodka into a deep gash on her thigh that wouldn't stop bleeding. When Ty had started crying she told him it was "better because this way she wouldn't have to feel anything" while Nat was sewing her leg closed.

He attached the suture thread to the needle, pouring the alcohol over his hands before starting. Why do I know how to do this. He would ask. Because you have to. He would tell himself back.

"Are you going to say anything?"

Ty pushed the needle through her skin, pulling it out on the other side of the lesion. "There's nothing to say." He was mad. Furious, to be specific. He sat here, 17, sewing up an open wound on his mother's back and he had done it before. He was good at it.

"Fine then-careful." She winced after he had tied the first stitch a bit tighter than what was comfortable.

Ty scoffs, shaking his head.

"Ladies first." He continues, pulling the needle through again and again, working at a calm, relaxed pace that does not match his tone. "Because I'm the one who needs to be careful, sewing up this gash on your back, that you let someone give you." He rinsed some of her blood off his hands, moving onto the third stitch, then the fourth.

Dom ran a hand through her hair, her back felt numb at this point. "Well-other than this, my day was pretty good."

Ty rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I bet." There was another pause. "I'm so tired of this." He finished the sixth, the seventh...eighth...ninth….tenth.

"I know."

"It's a load of bullshit, all of this. Both of you."

"We know."

"You do? Oh! Well great!" Fourteenth…fifteenth...sixteenth.

"Ty? I'm sorry. You know that."

He had come to the conclusion years ago that he cared too much. It was just in his nature and something that couldn't be changed. He wished that he could stop because for him it was a perfectly reasonable reality that he could come home one day and find that either Nat or Dom-or both, to be completely honest-had bled out on their living room carpet. Or he would wake up to hear a gun fight in the kitchen. Or that Nat would forget that she even had a family while on a mission and she would just stay gone.

"If you were sorry I wouldn't be doing this right now. Not because I wouldn't want to but because I wouldn't have to."

Now Dom started getting frustrated. This was her job. It is what she did well. All Ty had ever done since he had met her was ask her to do something else. Do something other than what she was good at. Of course he had stopped after a few years when he realized it didn't get anywhere but she could see him silently begging her whenever she would come home like this.

"Last time I checked you're not the one with the gaping wound in your back."

"Because I'm not a fucking idiot." He was right again. A less rare occurrence as he got older.

There was nothing else said between the two and Ty finished the first wound with nearly a hundred stitches. The rest he did quickly and they each took less work. He could see how whomever her attacker was slowly lost the fight. 98….31…..15….11….7. Stitches: done. He pulled out a large compression bandage, standing up and wrapped it up tight from above her navel to underneath her armpits. Done.

"Anything else?"

"No."

"Good. You probably shouldn't do much of anything for the next few weeks because if your stitches happen to tear then I would have to do this all over again." The whole spiel that he told them each time, and each time he ended up restitching them at least twice. And he would do it without hesitating or questioning them on why they didn't listen to him. He knew why.

Dom nodded and stood up from the barstool,

"Thanks."

"Mhm." He went to the kitchen and rinsed off the rest of the blood from his hands.

Domino crossed her arms. He was good, better than them. Angrier.

"Are you good?" He wasn't. She knew he wasn't.

"As soon as I get your blood out from under my fingernails I will be actually. Thanks for asking!" He rolled his eyes, turning off the faucet while wiping his hands on his t-shirt. She nodded, wanting to respond but for once couldn't find the appropriate words to retaliate with.

"I'll see you in the morning then Tyler."

With that the merc went into her room to try and pretend to sleep, while Ty went out the door in search of something better for a little while.


End file.
